BROWSE STORIES

For 45 years I have been haunted by the fact that if I had been born less than four hours earlier my lottery number would have been 359 and, most certainly, my life would have been very different. Standing on the steps of a college dorm on that evening in December,...

Prior to the draft lottery, I had received a notice from Selective Service to report for my Armed Forces physical the day after college graduation. I figured that if I was going to be drafted, I would explore volunteering so that I'd have some say in what I did...

The night of the 1969 draft lottery, I was a junior at the University of Georgia. I was a junior college transfer. We were gathered around the TV in the fraternity house. I thought I had missed my number as it was getting towards the end. I then heard my birthday and...

I watched the lottery on TV with my fraternity.  As our birthdates were selected we left for the bar, some out of depression and some out of joy.I spent the following 3 years staying in school.  After graduation I spent the next 6 months appealing my...

I remember the draft well. Pass all your classes, you keep a II-S deferment. Fail one class, I-A! One of my friends failed his English term paper because of run-on sentences and fragments. (Today your computer would catch those errors). He failed the class, was...

Like B.C and A.D., the lottery divided my life on earth into two distinct parts: before this and after this. In advance of the lottery, military experts had informed us that people with numbers lower than about 150 were sure to be drafted. My number was 83....

Five or six of us gathered in my Russell Hall dorm room at the University of Georgia. We didn't have a TV, so we turned our radio up so as not to miss a date. The early dates were met with a hushed tension, but as the time scrolled on, most of us became more relaxed...

Even though I got a relatively high number in the draft, I was still nervous about the impending pre-induction physical. When I went in to Fort Hamilton (in Brooklyn) for my "reguired by law pre-induction physical," all I could think about was, "How the...

I graduated high school in 1968. Some of my friends volunteered for the Navy and Air Force to keep from being drafted into the Army and having to go to Vietnam. Others were drafted. I had two friends that walked point in Vietnam and lived to tell about it, although...

I was a junior at Norwich University, a military college in Vermont (home and founder of ROTC) and was in ROTC with an expectation of going to either Germany or Vietnam. I chose to go to Norwich since if I had to go to Vietnam I wanted to go as an officer.  I...

When the lottery was drawn in December of 1969, I was a sophomore at UGA and had just moved into an apartment with a high school buddy and former Tucker Hall roommate, Wayne.  We had several neighbors and two additional roommates crowd into our 2 bedroom...

I dealt with the draft lottery of 1969. I had graduated from undergraduate school, a small, liberal arts school in Iowa named Wartburg College in spring '67, and had planned to go to graduate school if I could get an assistantship, starting that fall....

Turns out, Hawaii's not badAfter graduation from the University of Georgia in the summer of '69, I started job interviews.  After repeatedly answering the inevitable question about my draft status (I-A), it sunk in there would be no jobs forthcoming. I decided to...

I could tell by the look on their faces.I was a Junior at UNC-Charlotte struggling with my grades the day after the 1969 draft lottery.  I, like every other male student there, had tracked the lottery and knew my number.I had a French lab that afternoon in a...

Five or six guys were gathered in my dorm room at Abraham Baldwin College in Tifton, Georgia when we heard who were the lucky winners.  It was the first and only lottery I ever won. I stayed in college and after graduating from the University of Georgia in...

I was a sophmore at UGA and lived in the AEPi fraternity house in Athens.  I recall the TV news shows announcing the numbers off and on throughout the day.  I forget what day of the week it was, but my fraternity brothers would come and go, looking for their...

As I recall, the entire frat house was watching and listening to the lottery and drinking beer.  After about number 200 or so, I took a bio break and while standing there, another brother came to use the head.  He was one year older than me, but we both had...

I was sitting in a dorm room at Georgia with 4 or 5 other resident friends, drinking beer and listening to the live draft on the radio. There was a lot of tension in the room as your number had a huge impact on your immediate future and the choices you faced. A low...

Before the date of the first lottery I had already been in Air Force ROTC for four years. After graduating in 1969 I was slated to be commissioned in the Air Force. However, on the morning of my signing up I decided I actually did not want to be...

I was living in the fraternity house when the first lottery was held. Everybody put a dollar (or five or whatever it was) in a pot and whoever had the lowest number "won" the money. As you might imagine, it was a pot no one wanted to win. My friend Joel's...

I entered the University of Georgia as a freshman in the fall of 1967.  I was 17 years old when I walked into my first ROTC class.  Sgt. Lunsford strode in and declared, "Firepower is bullets hitting people!"  That's all I remember from...

I remember being at the fraternity house that night in 1969 when the lottery took place.  I was a sophomore at UGA.  My number was actually a good one (228), but I didn't realize how good it was. A good friend of my father's was on the draft board...

I was a freshman at Georgia on scholastic probation after the first quarter.  I needed to bring my grades up by the end of the second quarter or I was toast...surely heading to Vietnam!  I was under a lot of pressure grade-wise when the...

As the evening dragged on, our gathering around the radio dwindling as the draft dates were drawn, I became convinced that my number had come and I had missed it.  I knew that I had to be in the first echelon of birth dates.  I had already been reclassified...

It was 1 December 1969, and I was a freshman at the University of Rhode Island. Forty or so guys were huddled around the big TV in the lobby watching the results.About twenty-five of us put $1 each into a pool so that the guy who drew the lowest number would win the...

207. That was my number. Anytime I hear that number in the near half-century since, I immediately recognize its significance to me. I think they got to about number 195 the following year to be inducted. Lots of wondering if they would get to my number or not. I read...

I was finally drafted in December 1969 after graduating from UGA and trying unsuccessfully for several deferments and also to get into the Reserves. Mine was the last group to go prior to the lottery but when my lucky number turned out to be 13 I knew there was...

I graduated from the University of Georgia with a BBA in accounting June 1969.  I began work in Atlanta several days after graduation for Arthur Andersen & Co., a large international CPA firm.  I was worried about being drafted so was able to join the...

I vividly remember the day of the lottery. All of my close college friends gathered in one room to watch. I was the first number drawn from our group at 040. The next highest number for those in the room was in the 90s. It was ironic that we were the only...

I didn't get to see my number till the Sunday morning following the lottery due to my being in about the sixth week of basic at Ft. Campbell, KY. Our BCT Company (B-10-2) was limited to Company area, but on those Sunday mornings, a couple sons of non-coms would...

35.  My birthday in 1948 was on May 7.  That's month 5, day 7.  5x7=35, my draft number.  It was all too neat.  I was a senior at Cornell sitting on the sofa next to my pregnant young wife in the library room of our tiny student apartment in...

My hometown is Lynchburg, VA; but, I was born in Athens, GA while my father was at the University of Georgia.  So, after high school, I returned to UGA and was graduated on June 7, 1969.  On that same day, I also was...

I avoided the draft by keeping my student deferment until 1966, when I left college temporarily to raise the money to continue my education. Three weeks after I left, I was called up for a physical at Fort Jackson, SC. There I passed the AFQT with flying colors,...

I remember the day of the lottery like it was yesterday. At the time, I was a senior at St. Paul's School, an all boys Catholic high school in Covington, Louisiana. We were in homeroom watching a black and white television. As the numbers were called, I could hear my...

I graduated from the University of Georgia in June 1969 and began work immediately.  I was called for my draft physical in September 1969.  I talked with an Air Force recruiter and was told that they were only accepting Officer Candidate School candidates as...

I was in the premed program at the University of Georgia at the time of the lottery. My roommate was a business major. The night the lottery was broadcast live on the radio, Dwight and I purchased a couple of six packs of beer and several snacks, settling in for the...

The 1970 lottery was in the summer after I finished high school.  With number 28 I was sure to be drafted even if the war ended, so I enlisted rather than go to college.  I didn't really have any future plans figured out and the reserves and national guard...

Prior to 1966 my draft board was constantly re-classifying me I-A even with good grades and school certifications of attendance.  So being from a military family anyway, I joined senior Army ROTC at the University of Georgia and thus eliminated the draft board's...

A friend from my small home town had been killed in Nam in 1967. I was afraid of the draft and the coming lottery, so I kept a diligent eye on my grades. My roommates at the University of Georgia and I gathered in our Benton Apartment in front of a small TV and...

I wasn’t subject to the draft because I had already served three years in the Marines before I started at UGA in 1966. But I was very aware of the draft because quite a few of my classmates were in law school simply to obtain a deferral, which I thought was...

Yes, remember those days very vividly! I graduated from UGA in 1969 and started working at Macon Jr. College as an Instructor. My draft board in Cairo, Ga. (my hometown) said I had to go serve. I moved my draft status to Macon, Ga. where I was living and appealed the...

I was living in a small trailer with two roommates who were also my classmates in the School of Pharmacy. The evening of the lottery my roommate Fred S. (from Dublin, now in Albany) had the only car - an early and very shabby Corvair. My other roommate was Donnie H.,...

I was a student at the University of Georgia and I remember watching the show with my roommate Larry. Larry pulled a low number and the next day signed up for the Marines reserves. I remember the long list of numbers being called and finally I drifted off and was...

I remember this as if it was yesterday. I went to my favorite watering hole in Athens, GA to watch the first ever lottery while enjoying $.25 pitchers. The only problem was, I did not get there until they were already on number 11. As I watched the numbers go by and...

I graduated high school in 1966 and I entered UGA in the fall of '66, met my wife-to-be Patricia and enrolled in the UGA Army ROTC program. I had intended to make a career in the Army as a pharmacist in the Medical Service Corps after I graduated from the UGA...

By 1969 I was not too concerned about the draft. I had been called up in 1966, prior to the huge build-up in 'Nam, and reported for my physical in Ft. Jackson, SC. We had gone through all the physicals except for vision when the Sgt in charge told everyone who wore...

I did not watch the lottery, but a friend called me up later and asked if my birthday wasn't Sept 14 (1950). I said yes, and he gave me the good news! I of course thought it was a joke and tried to ignore it. As I was still in high school at 19-I started school a year...

On the day of the lottery, I was in Biochemistry laboratory at university.  When I finished my lab I ran back to the dorm to watch the lottery with all my buddies.  We were all freaked out.  During the three years since I graduated from high school in...

I was a junior at UGA in 1969. A group of students at my fraternity decided that it would be better for us to join the Army Reserves rather than take our chances in the lottery. We found vacancies at the Army reserve unit in Augusta and signed up for a six year...

My future wife and I attended a UGA basketball game on the evening of the 1969 draft lottery. We were listening to post-game comments on the radio, as we were driving back to my fraternity house, when the broadcast was interrupted for the live simulcast of the...